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Bespoke engagement
A financial model built around the decisions a particular business actually faces, whether planning, expansion, forecasting or scenario analysis, rather than a template asked to fit.
Scoped to your requirements, with a tailored quote.
The problem
Owner-managed businesses are rarely short of financial information. What they lack is a way to use it forwards: something that answers what happens if we take that contract, hire those two people, open that second site, or lose the largest customer.
Statutory accounts cannot answer those questions. They are prepared to satisfy an obligation, they look backwards, and they aggregate. A spreadsheet built in a hurry three years ago and patched since is usually not much better.
The result is significant decisions made on judgement alone. Experienced owners are frequently right, but they are deciding unaided.
Purpose
We build a model that reflects how your business actually works: its revenue drivers, its cost behaviour and its timing. It is built so that you can use it yourself, without us, whenever a decision comes up.
The objective is a decision tool rather than a document. It should be clear enough to trust, simple enough to change, and specific enough that the answers mean something.
When it helps
Usually when a decision is approaching that the current information cannot answer.
What is included
Every model is built for its purpose, so the shape varies. The work generally covers the following.
The model is yours, in a format you can open and edit. We do not build things only we can operate.
Deliverables
Boundaries
Please note
Where a model raises a question that needs your accountant or a tax adviser, we identify it clearly so it can be dealt with properly.
The sequence
Shorter and more collaborative than a review, because the output has to be something you will genuinely use.
A discussion about the decision in front of you and what would need to be true for the model to answer it. This frequently narrows the brief, which is a good outcome.
What is being built, what it will produce, what we assume and what it costs. Agreed before anything begins, and not revisited once it has.
Gathering what the model needs and agreeing it with you. Where a figure is genuinely unknown we say so and test its effect rather than guessing quietly.
We build, then walk you through it, then adjust. Most models improve materially at this point because seeing one is what tells you what you actually wanted.
The finished model, the assumptions note, and a session using it on a real question so it is not left unopened.
The fee
The fee
Scoped to your requirements, with a tailored quote.
Engagements of this kind vary too much for a published figure to mean anything. We agree the scope with you first and confirm the fee in writing before any work begins. There are no packages, no tiers and no day rates.
Arrange an initial discussionAfterwards
Most clients take the model and use it. It is built to be maintained by the business rather than to require us.
Where circumstances change materially, further iterations or advisory on how to use the model can be scoped separately. Some businesses come back annually; most do not need to.
Questions
There is no published price, because the work varies too much for one to be meaningful. A short model answering one question is a very different engagement from a full operating model with scenarios. We discuss what you need and provide a tailored quote, agreed in writing before anything begins.
Aston Finch is an independent advisory firm, not an accountancy practice. The financial expertise behind this work comes from chartered accountancy experience, but the work itself is commercial modelling to support decisions, not compliance.
No. Your accountant prepares and files, and knows the history. This is a forward-looking tool for decisions, and the two sit alongside one another. We are glad to work with your accountant directly.
If the decision needs one. Some models require full three-statement output; many need only cash flow and a profit view. We agree what is genuinely needed rather than building everything as a matter of course.
A spreadsheet you can open, read and edit. We do not build models that depend on software you would have to keep paying for, or that only we can operate.
A model is only as good as its assumptions, and we would rather be honest about that than imply precision it cannot have. Its value is in showing how sensitive an outcome is to the things you are unsure about, which is usually more useful than a single confident number.
Yes, and it is scoped separately if you want it. The handover session is designed to make that unnecessary for most businesses.
Accurate and useful are different properties. What decisions actually require from financial information, why statutory accounts cannot supply it, and where to start without new systems.
Turnover rises, effort rises, and the bottom line does not follow. Why growth arrives in the least profitable places, how overheads move in steps, and why price is the most neglected lever.
Growth does not create problems; it reveals the constraints already there. The structural characteristics that let a business absorb demand, and the order in which they are worth building.
A short conversation about the decision in front of you is usually enough to establish what the model would need to do, and what it would take to build.